For my tastes, Haydn is underplayed and underloved. They always play the London symphonies on the radio, but seldom the Paris symphonies, almost never the Sturm and Drang symphonies and, aside from Le Matin, none of the early symphonies. I recall quite clearly the day (during my undergrad years) they dropped the needle on one of the middle symphonies while we looked on at the score, and how what seemed to be self-evidence and understatement revealed itself to be something altogether different. Here, I thought, was a hearty meal. Haydn, like so many others, gains so much when you listen with the score in hand.

The piano sonatas, too, are like this. Although Haydn, if anyone, was the father of the classical forms, these do not dominate or constrain his piano sonatas, which take their time and let their motives unfold and drift as they will. At the same time, they demand the full restraint of the classical style--there's nothing quite so dull as a pianist who leans into them like you would Beethoven. When I saw on Spotify that Emmanuel Ax had recorded them I knew he'd do them justice. I had seen him once in rehearsal in Columbus along with Yo-Yo Ma, listening in the empty hall to his light but muted touch at the keys. This is what you need for Haydn, I thought. And indeed. Sonata 31 in Ab Hob. XVI,46 is a real feast, especially the mesmerizing triplet figurations of the development section:

These then unfold into a series of tonal mysteries and tocatta-like improvisations, which Ax sets free to breathe and wander before returning to the highly structured conclusion. Two thumbs up.